Thursday, May 10, 2007

And Winter Came Marching Back...

Yesterday was a wild, windy day. It started mild, but by the time I went to lunch with a friend, dark clouds were spreading out from the north, somewhere over the mountains.

But first, we went to a very small restaurant run by some of her friends and had an amazing lunch of hot soba (buckwheat noodles), salmon with carrots, bamboo roots and some sort of peppers, something called "mountain vegetable" and rice. Plus a tiny bowl with a little dollop of some sort of cream with a slight onion taste. This was probably the best lunch I've had since I've been back.

After that, we walked to Starbucks and talked while watching all the people coming and going to the train station. Hamamatsu Station is a center of nervous energy all during the day, and the Nova/Starbucks/McDonald's intersection stays busy. A window seat on a rainy day at the Starbucks is great for people-watching, and on a warm, sunny day, you can do the same at one of the sidewalk tables.

By the time I had to head for the office, the sky had opened up. Great gouts of rain more like the run-off from a gutter than normal precipitation began lashing us in a swirling wind. Then thunder and flickering lights.

It turned cold and windy after the rain. Even now, on a sunny day after, the wind is blustering.